The frequency and the pathological findings of 125 early gastric cancers (ECGs), and particularly of small and minute lesions, were evaluated in a retrospective study of 839 surgical specimens of gastric carcinoma. Sixty two ECGs were believed to have risen from gastric epithelium, 27 from areas of intestinal metaplasia, and 3 from cardio‐pyloric mucosa. The remaining lesions showed mixed histological patterns. The most frequent macroscopic type was IIc (24.8) followed by IIb (16.8), I (16.8), and III (14.4). In 63 cases (50.4) the cancer was limited to the mucosa. In all specimens, and particularly in small and minute lesions, the surrounding mucosa was accurately analyzed to detect any lesion from which the cancer could have developed. Intestinal ECGs, especially if protruded, seem to arise from areas of intestinal metaplasia or of chronic atrophic gastritis. Rarely ECGs seem to stem from polypoid lesions both hyperplastic and adenomatous. On the contrary, most important seems to be the role of ulcerative lesions, since in 14 cases of our series, carcinomatous foci were observed within the regenerative epithelium covering the crater. No correlation was found between histologic type, size, staging, and frequency of node metastasis; this suggests the existence of ECGs with different biologic behaviou
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